Sonal Champsee

I’ve declared my novel done twice now, and been wrong both times. I’m not done. This lays a severe crimp in my plans to land a publishing deal that makes my nemesis writhe in envy.

I mean, it could still happen, but not without a lot of work first. And therein lies the problem, which is that I am fundamentally lazy and have a short attention span, and so going back to the same novel, again and again and again… well, even my motivational technique of spiting my nemesis is wearing thin.

This also puts the kibosh on my other plan, which is to write more short fiction again, which I was going to do by setting the audacious goal of writing something new every month and also revising something every month. I stuck to that goal for two months, and then failed to keep it for another four months.

This isn’t new territory. I have a long history of failed writing goals, most of which centre around some notion that I will write on a regular basis. I dream of one, concentrated binge where I produce lots of work, and then can sit back for a long time submitting from a large stock of well-written stories and then just tinker and fiddle now and again.

I get through each novel revision by convincing myself that once I make these changes, the novel will be done, will sell, will do fantastically well and I will never have to write again. I mean, I could dabble, but only now and then. But until I have an actual published book, I cannot just quit, and thus I am stuck between ambition and sloth.

Is it time to accept that my process is one of short, infrequent bursts? I don’t know. I don’t want this to be my process, since that seems very low volume.

On the other hand, self-motivation, discipline and routine have never been among my strong suits. I do everything in short, infrequent bursts.

I suppose the best I can do is to try and make them less infrequent.